Will Pharmacy Software Vendors Step Up to the Plate & Help Change this Industry?

This year’s Annual ASCP Meeting was held in the pleasant setting within Anaheim’s Convention Center. In ASCP President Judith Beizer’s message in the meeting’s program she mentions a focus on technology to help long-term care pharmacies improve their businesses.

There were several dedicated times set aside to touch on technology for LTCP operations including the Thursday November 19th at Busienss Forum Meeting titled: What Long-Term Care Pharmacies Need to Know About Selecting Health Information Technology.

Pharmacy Technology Resource and StongCord have committed to LTCP owners and business leaders to support and drive the industry’s first “Mandate to Technology Vendors”.

Lee Meyer with Golden Living, Lynn Shipp with Strategic Healthcare Partners, Robert Miller past ASCP President, Ross Brickley with CCRx, Tom Smith with Geritom Medical, and Shelly Spiro – oncoming 2010 ASCP President were all in attendance. These are just a few of the leaders in this industry – that could confirm and attest to the positive effect a guarantee provided by pharmacy software management and technology vendors could positively impact the profitability of independent long-term care pharmacies.

Generally there are several key anxiety points around any technology selection. There might be multiple choices of one particular technology or software which purport to be the “Right Choice”. There are many technology vendors who claim to have the “silver bullet” or the one – technology solution that could change everything!

Questions posed: What about cost of selection? What effects are there in a particular selection? The purchase of the technology is one aspect of over cost – but what about implementation, proactive customer-centric support, and ongoing management of your choices? What about your own organizational adoption (or not) of the new system(s)? [How about the anticipation of failed expectations and the inevitable self-posed question, “Now what?”]

Business Goals Supported by Technology: Don’t start with the technology or software suggested. Does the vendor in consideration have a understanding, foggy view, or maybe no view at all of your business strategy and their technology alignment for 1, 3, and 5 years out?

What is your business goal?

What are you attempting to achieve for your business? Remember you need a strategy first.

Strategy focuses. People that depend on Process. Enabled by Technology. (In that order.)

What business challenges/problems is the contemplated technology intended to resolve?Can you measure it?

What are the Have-to-Haves vs. the Nice-to-Haves when it comes to technology in your business?

Will the vendor guarantee the results or credit you when the technology doesn’t perform to the standards purported in the sales process?

Pharmacy Technology Vendor Mandate Proposal: Every Vendor promoting products and services to the LTC Pharmacy should share the risk of technology cost and performance with the Pharmacy Owner/Operator in the form of performance-based credits to the Pharmacy. This could be broken into three categories.

Customer Support: Effective or not effective every time you call on a specific issue tracked by a “ticket” or “problem/ issue log”

Software / Technology – performance: Does it do all it was presented to do while in the presentation or demo? Does it work properly? Is the software and or technology keeping your pharmacy from being productive and or profitable? Are bug fixes / identified problems not being corrected month after month?

Customer Software & Interfaces: Between vendors – are there integrated pieces of software? If these integrations don’t work – is there a “blame game” and is the issues unresolved?

This mandate is a concept that is not new in other industries. Will the vendor’s in the LTCP space commit to “FUNCTIONAL INTEGRITY?”

Feedback Requested: We need to hear from Technology / Software Vendors & LTC Pharmacy Owners and Operators. We can change the playing field for Independent LTC Pharmacy operations and help improve productivity and profitability – however – we need your support.

Please send us your thoughts and feedback to help create the foundation of this mandate. Please send us an email to: partners@pharmacytechnology.net

Re: Will Pharmacy Software Vendors Step Up to the Plate & Help Change this Industry?

In my opinion, it comes down to actually DOING all of the above points mentioned (and more), not just TALKING about it. The mandate (or need for the above) is already present. Pharmacy owners are well aware of the frustrations and definitive need to have functional pharmacy software and modules in place within their organization in order to be more productive and profitable...and in the end, successful. The pharmacy's ability to operate efficiently and cost effectively while being kept in the forefront of the industry's technology advancements is something I think all pharmacy organizations (LTC & Retail) require heavily. The question is what software vendors or modules are out there to fulfill this currently?

As far as I can see, not many. Pharmacies currently are still in the dark as to what really is available for helping their business thrive optimally. Many are caught up in fear of wanting to switch vendors simply because they are too comfortable with their current (outdated) system (many QS/1 users for example), however some are breaking free and becoming more informed & venturing to other alternatives (like FrameworkLTC for example) only to find out that the alternative is not any better, and they are back to their same problems that they endured previously.

There are very few "true" pharmacy software alternatives for today's pharmacy owners and organizations where functionality, efficiency, ease of use, cost effectiveness, customer relations/support, and state of the art technology are delivered in a tightly wrapped pharmacy management module that a pharmacy owner ultimately wants.

At present time, I can only find one vendor that offers such sought after features, and that vendor is Prodigy Data Systems with their Proscript 2000 software. This company seems to have a high understanding of what's needed (and wanted) by pharmacy operations and are on top of the industry technology advancements. I thought that would be worth mentioning for those looking for a "decked-out, yet easy to use" software solution from a company that seems to understands the pharmacy industry as a whole. This coming from me is saying a lot considering I don't like to give out my gem findings very much.

Saying that there is a need to create a mandate may be over the top, but what I think is needed from a pharmacy owner's point of view at least, is an understanding of where your pharmacy operation stands, where you want to be headed and what is going to help you get there at the most cost effective, productive, secure, and profitable manner.

Re: Will Pharmacy Software Vendors Step Up to the Plate & Help Change this Industry?

DaveCRx, I think that the needs of pharmacies can vary a lot. The needs of a compounding only pharmacy and a "Cash Only Pharmacy" may have needs quite different from a traditional community pharmacy. And the new start-up pharmacy has different needs from an established pharmacy. I don't believe that there is a one best solution for all pharmacies.

Apothesoft attempts to fill the needs of new start up pharmacies by providing affordable pharmacy software. I can be contacted at:

Marty Francom

Apothesoft, LLC

2541 Perry Avenue

Bremerton, Wa 98310

(360) 271 - 2527

email: marty @ apothesoft . com

Re: Will Pharmacy Software Vendors Step Up to the Plate & Help Change this Industry?

Marty,

Yes, pharmacy needs from one pharmacy to another will vary a lot with PARTICULAR needs, but one thing that is common (which is what I referred to in a previous post) is that ALL pharmacies look to have a software that can (and will) function practically, provide what is required by the pharmacy at an optimal level and in the end do all of this in a very cost-effective manner.

It is great that Apothesoft provides affordable software, but once the pharmacy gets going with growing their business, then what? From what I have seen (and I have seen many systems in the past 10 years), one is not going to grow their pharmacy optimally with an "entry level" software system. Not trying to knock your setup or anything, but providing an "affordable" system to entry-level/start-up operations is fine, but anyone thinking long term (which any smart business person would do) would see that there is more than just affordability involved with running a successful pharmacy outfit. Having the capabilities on hand to carry your pharmacy into the tomorrow's technology advances is what's important. If your software can't provide practicality, userfriendliness and continuously integrate the most current innovations to meet industry standards, then (no matter how cheap it is to get started), it's simply not worth having to begin with. This is the current frustrations among most (if not all) pharmacy owners. And most vendors don't realize this. ;)